Chinese E-Locker

I was going to wait until I got up into the mountains (and trails) to give an update but that won't be for a week or two. I will give an opinion on the initial operation after that. Thought I would at least give an installation update.

The shop I used was Macam Motor Works (Philippines for those that don't know where I live). Really good group and really picky about the job they do.

Pulling the original diff:


Assembling the e-locker:


Final diff assembly:


And back in it went. Haven't really noticed (no opportunity yet) any effect from the Torsen LSD portion of the diff but will be on mountain roads soon. We'll see if there is an effect on the handling. Will update again after I hit some mud/dirt.

Good luck with that locker. I do not have good experience with chinese diff lock and i will not recommend to anybody to install chinese part on car. If you wish serious diff lock you will buy ARB only, rest is just bad copy. One my friend had installed similar diff lock from china and after few uses that locker failed.

Zukebob, I know it's not a question about your E-locker but I couldn't help notice from your post that you're running Kuhmo KL71's! How're you finding them, are they pleasant on road as much as they are off?

DAGZOOK:
I do like the KL71. I don't do any serious mud driving....hate it actually and work to avoid it. The problem I have in the Philippines is that there are times you can't avoid mud. When I have no choice, they work well getting me through. Keep in mind that I absolutely refuse to go in mud that is much deeper than 3 or 4 inches. They are fairly quite on road. I have certainly had worse in that department. The only thing I find as a downside is that they are unidirectional. My first choice in a tire would have been Maxxis MT-772 RAZR which is bidirectional. The aren't carried here in 215/75r15 so, without any regret, I went with Kumho.

Nikola:
Interesting comment. On your friend's failed locker, I would be interested in what was the operational condition and failure mode.

I hope from these pictures you will find out why:)
Material is not good and balancing too...

Now THAT is a failure! Am I seeing it correctly? The ring gear mounting flange actually sheared?

If you can, ask your friend where he sourced the locker. I'm really curious which company produced that. I am also still curious what the operational scenario was. What was he doing at the moment the locker failed?

Yes, you are right. The ring gear mounting flange sheared. That was Air Locker, copy of ARB , but same rubbish like all chinese products... My advice is: Do not buy cheap parts, you will spend more money to repair it....

This cannot have happened just driving down a bit of a rough track even with a Chinese locker it has to have been doing something extreme or running huge tyres or something.

This part of air locker should be strongest part... gears, bearings etc... have to be weaker parts... Anyhow quality of chinese locker is poor.
P.s. when you need diff lock ofcourse you are doing something extreme... size of tyres were 31". That is not excuse to have failure like this... ARB quality is completely different story... I recommend just ARB for off road use.

Lambert:
As Nikola says, even relatively hard use shouldn’t break a locker like this. That said, I do agree with you that there is more to this story.

Just from looking at the pictures it would be difficult to make a guess of exactly why it failed. I will say that the pictures do show some things that don’t make sense to me. While I was working I had the opportunity to review numerous failed parts and I can say that the shear surface pattern isn’t normal. The uniform cross section of the shear area on the locker body makes me suspicious of the manufacturing techniques used. I also can’t help but question why there appears to be seams on the body of the locker.

Now while all of that does support Nikola’s claim that this Chinese locker was junk, I can buy junk made in the U.S., the UK, the EU and even ARB’s home in Australia. If you buy junk, you own junk. My simplest assessment is that this failed because it WAS junk. I wouldn’t put that on the Chinese manufacturing industry. If I had received that locker, I would never EVER have installed it in my car. I honestly don’t mean any disrespect to Nikola’s friend but I do have to question his judgement in going forward with the install.

Nikola:
You are absolutely correct that the locker your friend installed appears, for numerous reasons, to be poorly made.

While I obviously disagree with your general comments about Chinese lockers being universally poor quality, you have the right to that opinion and I won’t even try to change your mind. If for no other reason, I will defer to the old expression that “you shouldn’t try to teach a pig to sing…..it just wastes your time and annoys the pig”. I won’t waste either of our time trying to convince you of something you already have fixed in your mind.

For the sake of others reading this thread I would simply remind them that there are several members on this forum, as well as numerous members on the Australian forum, that have been running Chinese lockers hard and long without issue. As I wrote in another thread, here in the Philippines there is about a 5 to 2 ratio of HF brand (Chinese) to the ARB. I have witnessed a large number of these folks running their vehicles (not just Jimnys) hard and bordering on abuse. I don’t know of even one failure. Lastly, I find it hard to believe that a company like TRE (Chinese) would offer the same 5 year warranty that ARB does while selling a product that fails after several uses.